


Down Among the Harvest

by Vita_S_West



Category: Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms, Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Copious Napping, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Gardens & Gardening, M/M, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-23 02:13:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20884466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: A series of vignettes/ficlets dedicated to Max, Morse, their garden and the little creatures they (sometimes unwillingly) share it with.





	1. Sunday Spider

**Author's Note:**

> have I done this before? Basically, yes. I will be doing it again.

“I’m doing this for you.” 

Max’s earnest tone drifted across the back garden, landing in Morse’s ears, as he lazily lapped up the sun, sprawled across a lawn-chair. Collar loosened and shoes off, it took some effort to pop an eye open to squint through his lashes at Max. Leaning against a shovel, dirt to his elbows, Max appeared to be talking to his cupped hands. The gesture reminded him of talking into a walkie-talkie. At first, Morse assumed he was talking to a yanked weed or a ripened tomato. 

Bewildered and still addled by sun and sleep, Morse watched Max walk around the mountainous mass of his tomato plants and the twining heavy vines of squash to the back gate, where he stooped down. 

“There you are,” Max said, cheerfully. “Isn’t it better over here where I’m not wacking and weeding about? Much better place for a web, hm.”

A spider, Morse realized. The man was talking to a spider. 

This tickled Morse more than the sun as he stretched, back arching and bare feet scraping the ground before settling back into suspension. Under normal circumstances he would have helped him. However, he’d spent the better part of the previous week trying to catch up with Lewis and the chasing-suspects part of his job had been far more literal than he cared for. He was well due for putting his feet up, smelling the tomato and mint plants, and listening to the absentminded humming and chatter of his love.

Early fall idleness and contentment seeped into Morse, like autumn leaves drifting from treetops. The only thing pleasanter than lazing about the garden, was watching Max potter about the garden. The threat of frost seemed a far-off prospect. Winter and the loss of this garden haven was a promise Morse was happy to set aside and forget. 

Humming, Max returned to his tomatoes, apparently unaware that Morse had drifted out of his nap. He examined the selection, a spectrum of hues connoting ripeness, plucking crimson and bloody orange with a chuckle. 

It was nice, Morse mused as he watched Max pile tomatoes into a basket. Max had spent so much of the summer battling beetles and slimy slugs that he had been at his wits end. It was nice to see him sharing his garden amiably with creatures. It was also nice for Morse to not aid in the task of going about with a jar, collecting the abhorrent specimens and flushing them down the toilet. It was even nicer not picking slugs or snails off squash plants. 

Yes, it was exquisite to laze and to watch Max enjoy his garden. It was an excellent way to spend his Sunday.


	2. Saturday's Slug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is not in chronological order, fyi, I JUST realized. (sorry for any confusion), they are young again.

“You can love him but you can’t keep him,” Morse tossed the remark dryly over his shoulder, as he had hurled weeds for the better part of the afternoon.

Max scoffed, more out of instinct, rather than genuine irritation. “Fascinating that you think you can dictate to me in my own garden.” 

“I’m learning the lay of the land. Really, I’ve become indispensable.”

“You’ve gotten arrogant with knowledge,” Max said. He turned his attention to the slug he had pulled from his cabbage. It was a small one that slid down the length of his thumb. They loved cabbages more than him or Morse, but it wasn’t their garden. Unceremoniously, he flicked it into the garden path with a dirt-covered finger. 

The earth was damp and smelled sweeter that morning, perfumed by the previous night’s downpour. They had spent that night curled up together, listening to rain batter the window panes, wondering if one of the neighbouring trees was likely to come down on Max’s beloved garden. 

“The mint’s back,” Morse said, irritably. “I yanked it up just last week.”

“It was longer than that,” Max said. Using the kitchen knife, he severed the cabbage head from its stalk.

Morse had started helping Max in the garden earlier that year, in the spring. Initially, he had been happy to laze about on the sofa with a crossword or a book, while a record played. All the while, Max ran in and out with watering cans, unwinding and winding the hose, and filling up a wheelbarrow with weeds. In the evening, Max had reentered the house, exhausted, sweaty and badly bug-bit. It was on one such occasion that Morse commented that it seemed like a lot of bother for a few tomatoes that they could just as easily pick up from the store. The look he had given Morse was nothing short of withering. He had told him what a lot of bother it was with him lazing about, not doing the dishes, colourfully. Creatively, with more Latin than Morse would have been able to come up with should he reach that level of rage. 

It had been their first sizeable fight. Morse’s way of apology was to lug watering cans the following weekend. He had done it with a bit of silk, but still he had done it. 

He found that he liked keeping Max company and helping out with the garden. While Max appreciated the extra help, Morse’s impatience, and tendency to prematurely uproot carrots and then attempt to bury them as if nothing had happened  did prove to be quite trying at times . He needed rather a lot of supervision. 

“You still have it?”

“The mint? Aren’t you looking at it?”

“The slug.”

“No, I thought you would be jealous if I were to split my affections between you and something equally charming.”

Morse whirled around. “As charming as a slug? My, you weren’t saying that last night!”

“No, but then you weren’t saying much of anything either,” Max said. “Too busy snoring.”

Morse threw one of the mint plants at him, a streak of loosened soil tracing the trajectory to Max’s feet. 

“Is it a food fight you want?”

“Just a little appreciation for my hard labour.”

“Breaking your back are you?”

“My knees too.”

“Oh, well, I will have to see what can be arranged.”

“Yes?” Morse said. 

“Yes.”

Max put the cabbage in his basket alongside the recently unearthed and dirt-caked carrots and rose to his feet, wiping spare traces of soil onto his trousers. Morse watched him slip across the garden. While dirt coated the length of his forearms and smeared his cheek, his glasses were impeccably clear. He had a determined look in his eyes that made Morse smile on an instinct he wasn’t fully aware of. Sun glinted off his hair, casting his lighter strands gold. When his hand rested on Morse’s shoulder, it printed garden dirt over his heart. He pressed a kiss to his mouth, warm and soft and smelling of dirt and tomatoes. 


	3. Monday meows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some visitors are invasive species....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chap is set during Inspector Morse, rather than Endeavour. some inspo taken from ange/iloveyoudie's fic "Wild, Yet Most Homely" for this one (not a pre-req but I do recommend it!).
> 
> cue heavy references to ts eliot's "the wasteland"

The maple in the neighbour’s yard had turned a luminous red under the gaze of the autumn sun. Its leaves scattered into the garden on winds that were pleasant at noon, but promised winter  by evening . The verdant green of the garden had graduated to a range of hues—crimsons, golds, and purples. Weeding turned to harvesting and soon frosts would halt their hurrying. Morse tended to disagree with Eliot. November was far crueller than April. April was a month that eventually found its way to warmth and sun. Eventually brought the garden back to life under Max’s careful counsel. 

November was a barren month, heavy in its solitude. It was icy cold and gales leading to snow—Morse was hardly likely to forget snow if he was the one trudging through it. 

No, it was important to enjoy the wayward warmth while it still lingered. It was this sense that mixed with a feeling of protectiveness over their garden—something that never ceased to amuse Max—that made Morse reluctant to accept visitors. It was with deep irritation that, one evening, he found Max pouring tea for three, while the back door hung open. 

“What’s this?” he asked, sharply. 

Max’s eyebrows went up while his lips puckered. “A pot of tea. Would you rather I fetch the whisky?”

“Yes but for  _ whom?” _

The answer was provided with the soft tones drifting in from the garden. 

“ _ Here, puss, puss _ .”

“Oh, Lewis!” Morse groaned. “I just got rid of him.” The work day had barely been done an hour and now the man was back and in his garden to boot.  


“His wife’s away with the kids. Seemed a bit lonely.”

“Can’t he be lonely at home? What’s he talking to?”   


Moving to the doorway, Morse could see Lewis, back bent, stalking between the rows of Max’s garden. His hand was out in supplication to the neighbour’s orange tabby.  Sleeves rolled up on his collared shirt,  Lewis’s wrists and forearms were dangerously exposed to the beast, Morse noted with a grimace. The cat walked a few feet ahead of him, tail twitching. While he seemed to be ignoring Lewis, the rearward set of his ears betrayed a danger that Lewis, apparently oblivious to, invited with an open palm.

“Oh Leo is back,” Morse said rather darkly.

“Oh, ‘lo sir,” Lewis called when he spotted him. “Didn’t know you had a cat.” As he straightened, smile dimpled and Morse felt himself thaw briefly, before hardening again, this time irritated with himself. 

“We don’t.”

“Tell him not to go near that thing,” Max called from the kitchen. “It’s a hazard.”

“That monster is public enemy number one,” Morse related grimly. 

“Really? He doesn’t seem that bad. He’s a big boy, mind you. Must eat a lot.”

“Yes, mostly from the flesh of innocent sailors passing through the Straights, I imagine,” Max said as he elbowed Morse our of the way. He carried a tray laden with tea and cakes. “A regular Scylla.”

Leo was indeed sizable. He carried a wide girth at his shoulder that narrowed slightly at his hips. Yellow eyes shining, he looked up at Max and let out a plaintive yowl, a deceptive supplication. His tail flicked menacingly though. Max narrowed his eyes at him and promptly turned back to the house to get the spray bottle. 

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Lewis said genially. 

Undeterred, he bent down to pet the cat again. His hand had barely left the length of Leo’s back before the cat wheeled back with a sharp swipe up Lewis’s arm. The problem was, it wasn’t one swipe and a release. Claw firmly embedded into Lewis’s arm, Leo yanked it down to his waiting mouth. He submerged his teeth into Lewis’s hand in a practised efficiency that was practically professional. 

Lewis shouted and swore, hopping from one foot to the other, back still bent. Uncertain of how to get his hand free of the teeth without ripping open his arm even more, he was quite ensnared. 

“Oh get off of him you brute!” Morse came over to shoo him with his foot, which presented a new target. 

With more tearing of flesh, the cat lunged defensively at the approaching foot and promptly deployed an offensive maneuver onto Morse’s ankle. 

It was Morse’s turn to shout in pain as he tried to shake his foot loose of the feline. Leo, on his side, curled his body so that his back paws could be used to kick Morse, claws erect, double-footed. 

“You demon cat!”

“Oh out of the way, Lewis,” Max snapped, his face rosy. 

He aimed the spray bottle at the kickboxer and sprayed three times. 

Leo didn’t seem to notice the first squirt, but at the second was startled enough to release his teeth from Morse’s ankle. With the third he leapt away from his victims. 

Max released a fourth stream of water and then, as Leo made a hasty retreat, chased him down the garden path, spraying him, until Leo leapt from garden wall to maple tree branch to the ground of his own yard. For good measure Max leaned over the wall and sprayed a few more times, then pausing, called a greeting to their neighbour. 

“Leo’s not causing trouble again?” she asked pleasantly before providing the brute with a kiss on the M-shaped mark on his forehead. He yowled again, ear twitching. 

“No more than usual, Mrs. Lenowitz,” Max called back irritably.

"Naughty baby," Mrs. Lennowitz scolded pleasantly. 

Leo let out another yowl that Max assumed was agreement. He stalked back to a deeply confused Lewis and a fuming Morse. 

“It’s best not to approach him unless you have the backing of a fully armed police force,” Max told Lewis, "and possibly the UN."  


“No kidding,” Lewis said, holding up his arm. A long thin scratch dripped blood onto the path. 

“Chimeras are more charming,” Morse muttered, as he held his injured leg in the air. 

“More polite too,” Max agreed. “Let’s get you both bandaged up. Sit down, sit down,” he urged them both. “No need to waste a good evening in the bathroom. Enjoy the sunset.”

Settling down into the chairs on the edge of the patio, Lewis groaned. 

“More bloodshed than I’m used to without a body.”

“That thing shouldn’t be allowed. I told her it was a monster, and  _ she _ told me it was her baby.”

“Aye, a baby only its mother could love. A regular Kilkenny.”

“Sadist, more like.”

Max returned with the first aid kit. He patched Lewis up first, and other than a few winces and a slight hiss when he put the disinfectant on the cut, he took it rather well. Morse, however, was a different story. 

Max gently took his foot into his lap and rolled up his pant leg. Seeing Max damp a cloth with alcohol, Morse yanked away prematurely. 

“I haven’t even touched you yet!”

“It’s not necessary,” Morse grumbled. 

“Would you like a touch of cat scratch fever or could you sit still a moment?”

“It hurts!” he complained childishly. 

“If you like we can amputate. Would you like that better?”

“Ma- _ ax _ !” 

“Stop your fussing. You’d think you’d been to the wars not tangling with a tabby.”

“It was a demon from the pits…”

“Where did she find it?” Lewis broke in. 

“When they were on vacation in Switzerland, she said,” Max said. 

“Blimey, you’d think the Swiss would be a little more mild mannered.”

“Must be all the pent up aggression.”

“Maybe they deported him,” Lewis said. 

“I’d like to deport him,” Morse said. 

“I’ll deport you if you don’t stop wiggling,” Max scolded. He swatted Morse’s knee for emphasis.

Morse kept his grumblings quiet as Max disinfected the patches and broken and bloodied skin. He was in much better shape than Lewis, having had socks and trousers to protect his skin, whereas his sergeant had been waving a vulnerable skin under the beast of Bodmin's nose. 

“There, all done,” Max said before pressing a soft kiss to Morse’s knee. 

Morse grumbled a thank you and squeezed his hand. 

“Wasn’t so bad, hm?” Max said, sitting across from him. “Pass the cake, Lewis.”

Lewis, who had been digging in, swept crumbs away from his mouth and set about serving the other two men, while Max poured the tea. Despite the excitement Morse let out a contented sigh, as a soft breeze scattered more maple leaves into the garden. He was finally doing exactly what he'd wanted to do all day; sit in the garden with Max. 

“I could get used to this,” Lewis remarked pleasantly. 

“Mm,” said Morse. He already had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick note on the real life "Leo": not actually from Switzerland, but he does love biting and fighting.   
well that's all folks (for now tbh)


End file.
